Why do we get cravings?
In: Biology
Our bodies are smart enough to give us positive and negative feedback when we do things. For example, stretching feels good when you need it, otherwise it just sort of hurts a little. A good example of this feedback mechanism is salt. Salt is delicious if you need it and gross if you don’t. We have this idea that people will naturally consume too much salt because salt is delicious, but that isn’t actually true. For instance, livestock need salt licks to stay healthy, but even though a cow cannot think “I better lay off the salt lick, I might develop high blood pressure later”, cows self regulate their use of the salt lick. Your brain does the rest – you remember the times that salt made you feel good, and correlates the bad feelings due to salt deficiency being fixed by salt with salt. The same is true for other nutrients.
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